CLUBNEWS
6th MAY, 2008
LEAGUE SEASON –
WHAT IS THE CLUB AIMING FOR?
This is going to be a
singularly hard Track & Field season for the Club’s teams. There are new challenges, especially the
Men’s return to the top level of League athletics with all that is entailed –
three matches in
1)
STAY IN THE
.B.A.L.
This means that on all
the four dates – June 7th, July 5th, August 2nd
and 16th – the STRONGEST POSSIBLE MEN’S TEAM needs to be got
out. Remember that with several
second-choices in the team we won the Qualifier by over 60 points; that would
indicate that with anything like a team we should be fighting for
promotion. Furthermore there’s take
of the B.A.L. putting in another Division next year, so that if we do go
up it would guarantee another three years’ membership – time for our youngsters
to mature and more development and support to be sought. The first year’s crucial – don’t be
lulled into a false sense of security by the old saw that “it’s easier to stay
in than get in,” but turn out if asked and make sure.
2) GET THE WOMEN INTO THE
Last year we only
missed out by three points and the unavoidable absence of one athlete who might
have turned it. That counts for
nothing; it’s this season that matters. Unlike the B.A.L., which selected the
field for its Qualifier solely on a ‘paper match,’ the Northern League has a
nomination for membership; it will nominate the strongest women’s team, and
judging by the first match (see results) the Club has a strong rival contender
in Blackburn Harriers. In the next
three matches it’s vital that the girls turn out in strength and impress the
League that Leeds City is the North’s top ‘outsider’ and deserves another shot. Members also need to remember that if we
do have to go into a paper match the only performances that count
are those done in League matches – so turning out and doing well is doubly
important.
3) KEEP A TEAM IN NORTHERN LEAGUE 1
So why does the
Regional League team matter, say some of the Men’s Section, now we’re in the
B.A.L.? Well, before you get
carried away consider what might happen in the hopefully unlikely event that we
get relegated. After a somewhat
acrimonious dispute a couple of years ago when Bolton came down, the League set
down hard and fast rules about this, which state that in the event of
relegation from either National League a club’s team will be placed where
its existing Northern league team already is. So, if we came straight out of the
B.A.L. and got relegated in the Northern League, we’d start the 2009 season in Division
2 something with the likes (with all due respect to them) of Spenborough
and Holmfirth – and that would do the Club no good at all. Besides, the Men owe a duty to support
the Women in their efforts; and the easiest way to get the Women nominated is
to WIN THE LEAGUE! The
corollary of this is that if you’re either asked to go to the Northern rather
than the British League, or selected for the Division 4 team and then asked to
move up to Division 1 to cover for an injury, etc., you should go.
4) PROVIDE COMPETITION FOR EVERYBODY WHO WANTS
IT
So, if the lowest
Division team is to be ‘plundered’ by both teams above it, why bother to run it
when it might finish up half-complete?
This is a question that’ been asked by several members, particularly
regular B-teamers who are strongly supportive of it and wasn’t to see it
winning (and what’s wrong with that?)
The Scribe’s answers are, first, that if there’s nowhere for the people
who are ‘plundered’ to compete then they won’t be there to ‘plunder’ if they’re
needed; second, that as and open (an d not an ‘invitational’) club Leeds City
has a duty to try and provide for as many members as possible; and third, that
it should be there for the youngsters emerging from Young Athletes’ competition
as a stepping-stone to higher things at a level they can cope with. With a bit of enthusiasm on the team
management front (and the Team manager of the lowest team has to be an eternal
optimist who’s prepared to phone people to the last minute) the current
Division 4 team can be a useful adjunct to the total picture of the Club’s
activities – especially if it becomes the Division 3 team again!
At all levels,
therefore, the message is the same – if you want your Club’s Track & Field
Section to succeed and serve you well, you’ve got to be ready to put some of
yourself into it. How about it,
Folks?
So, having
pontificated about the objectives, how has the Club set about trying to achieve
them in the first big week of the season, and fortunately the only one with a
clash of the Seniors out on Saturday and the Youngsters out on Sunday. Read on! Details of performances in all
the weekend’s matches appear as usual on the Results
Page.
3rd May –
Northern Senior League, Division 1,
SOUND START IN SPITE OF
TRYING CIRCUMSTANCES
“This team,” said Martin Gostling, “will flirt with relegation.”
The Scribe has heard
this sort of thing before, usually before the first match of any season. Ray Barrow said
much the same in 1979, when the team got into the British league for the first
time; and on that occasion, just as happened on Saturday, an apparently weak
team picked itself up by the boot-straps and won the match in question. It’s natural for a Team Manager to
consider all weaknesses as disasters, and forget that all the tribulations –
loss of student members to the British Students’ Championship, injuries and
unavailability, even distance-runners wanting a week’s recovery after the
12-Stage – might be visited just as much on the opposition. As it turned out a narrow win with an
undoubtedly weakened team was a good start to the season; but there were also
reasons to temper any tendency to over-optimism with caution.
On the men’s side of
the team there were certainly a lot of weak points, nowhere more so than the
middle-distance events, where Arthur
Cooke was called on to fill
in with a double, Aidan Adams was a bit left for speed and Olly Ziff (who ran his heart out as ever) had to be
partnered by his coach Phil
Townsend, who did what he
could. Even here there were a
couple of positives as Mike
Salter turned in a good
runner-up 800 and James
Wilkinson dominated the
Steeplechase, winning more or less as he liked, with partner Mark Bryant providing a solid back-up run besides filling
in as an emergency 400 hurdler. The
weakness in the Vault (which happened indoors due to there being a better
‘bed’) was left by Tom
Wagner’s injury, and Mark Fuszard was a last-minute fill-in. Dan Gardiner,
who might have filled some holes, was being deliberately lightly-loaded in
early season (it’s too easy to kill off enthusiastic multi-eventers, and as
Team Manager Martin’s trying to avoid it), and made a couple of handy
contributions in what he did, while Steve Linsell’s
1.75 – well down on his recent form – was explained by a week of debilitating
gut-rot; the wonder was he cleared anything.
He wasn’t the only
Competing Cripple either; Mark
Gulliver has done something
awful to his knee cartilage, but insisted on doing his three events with
standing throws, which makes his points tally all the more remarkable, while Matt Barton, after swearing he wasn’t going to Triple and
winning the Long Jump taking off from his weaker left leg to spare his troubled
knee, said he’d put one in at sort of half-pressure and got carried away – by
about two metres further than anyone else! There were positives too. Matt Allison
started the season as well as he has for a couple of years, with particularly
good Discus and Javelin; Mark
Harrison celebrated his
league debut with a B-string Hammer win and a PB; and Tom Lindsay, gaining a reputation as the Sticking-Plaster
Man, covered one of the ‘holes’ in the team, in the Long Jump, by putting a PB
over it. Kyle Shaw and Umar Hameed put
in some good sprinting in the wind and scored heavily, Umar picking up a couple
of wins, Gary O’Neill ran his guts out as he always does, and Tom Roberts, in unhelpful conditions, again showed
determination and placed well.
The Women’s team is
under new management this year; and like Les Lavin last
week, Veronique Marot found herself on a steep learning-curve in the
last fortnight trying to pull together a team out of athletes she didn’t always
know too well and with practically all the student members missing. With a little help from her friends she
managed it, and in the end wasn’t even required, as appeared likely at one
time, to take to the track herself.
However, it was to say the least an uneven team, with a great deal of
effort being required from a comparatively small number of people; and it was Hazel Barker herself who is reported to have made the
comment that “if the Club needs me in the A team at my age, it’s struggling.”
Hazel ‘struggled’ to some purpose,
however, where the team scored most heavily – the Throws. Largely this was due
to Hannah Evenden hitting a purple patch; how else do you
describe four Club records in two events in an afternoon? However, she had no easy time in
some very strong throwing fields; in the Hammer, for instance, she added no
less than 4½ metres to her previous best with 45.27 – and was left for dead as
two girls broke 60 metres, and one of them would have had a British Under-20
record if anybody could have found a steel tape to measure it with! (The Scribe puts his hand up to admit he
hadn’t thought to mention it to the Stadium staff either!) The other record, however, a massive
12.82 in the Shot, produced a win; and Hazel, who had backed up in Discus and
Javelin, had her best moment here as well.
There was a bonus for Veronique when three willing Under-17s agreed to
compete on both Saturday and Sunday (thanks, girls!); two of them were the Marchant sisters, and after Amy and Katy had scored a valuable double in the High Jump
the latter went on to extend her Javelin best by a further metre. Rosie Trudgen
got a height in the vault and ran ‘out of distance’ in the Hurdles to good
effect. At least the girls got one
day’s competition in decent weather!
A further bonus occurred in the last three days before the match when both Naana Adusei and Ashley Little decided not to go to BUSA; Naana scored well in the 100 (though times were slow due to a headwind) and Ashley eased a crisis in both Long and Triple jumps, equalling her PB in the former. More good news came with the return to racing after a season out with injury of Grace Chattaway, who ran an excellent 200 and once fit should plug one of the serious ‘holes’ in the team at 400. Sheryl Punter did her usual workmanlike job in spite of struggling to find form at the moment, and in spite of once more needing the attentions of the slap-and-tickle man Kadena Cox did her full quota well and contributed to the quickest sprint relay in a few seasons. However, the soft spots were there; Alex Gostling and Celia de Maria had to cover the two longest races though neither of them was fully fit, Sophie Waterhouse was ‘left in a hole’ in the 800 between three much faster girls and two much slower ones, Emma Radcliffe found a similar situation in her first race for a while (she also filled in as emergency Hammer-chucker), and an awful lot was asked of a couple of youthful ‘willing horses (may they stay so!) in Liz Best and Jess Dobson.
There were excuses for
this narrow win, and that it was achieved says a lot for the spirit of the team
that turned out; but if the season’s objectives are to be achieved something a
bit better is needed for
3rd May –
Northern Senior League, Division 4WC,
FUN AND GAMES AT THE
LOWER LEVEL
It should be
compulsory for all the aspiring administrators and superannuated internationals
who pontificate about the future development of the sport to put in a day’s
work at Division 4 level of the Northern League, or its equivalent in other
regions. Without doubt they would
wring their hands in horror at a meeting where the track events were conducted
with only four timekeepers and three track judges, or where competitors in the
field events metamorphosed into officials at the drop of a track-suit top. They’d probably wring their hands at the
lack of organisation and go off to launch some high-sounding ‘initiative’
surrounded by the sort of jargonese language that nowadays seems an obligatory
accompaniment to any form of action; and they’d probably miss the point. They’d probably fail to notice that most
of the athletes – whose ages at the Radclyffe Centre ranged from 15 to 72, and
that was just
Once again there was a
new name on the team management sheet, and Kevin Ritchie
managed to persuade, cajole and sweet-talk nineteen athletes to turn out. They managed to cover about two-thirds
of the events, and as that was considerably better than all but two of the
other clubs did they finished a clear third with potential to go on. There was a great gaping weakness in the
Jumps; no High-jumpers or Vaulters, and Kevin himself took on the Long and
Triple (and was peeved at just missing three extra jumps in the latter!)
His Ladies’ team
received a major boost when Danielle
Carr asked to be ‘dropped
down’ so she could do the 100 she wants to concentrate on; it didn’t do her any
harm, as she produced season’s best in that and the 200, running faster than
the A team sprinters (though to be fair she didn’t have the headwind they had
to contend with.) Jessica Cooper made a promising debut over 400 (she needs a
shade more strength yet, but it’ll come), and Sharon Sandhu,
who’s tended to be overlooked, ran a sound 100 as well as volunteering to put
in a Long Jump. The three
middle-distance runners all performed capably, with Jennie Guard scoring good points in the longer two while
treating them as speedwork for longer events; India Haresign
ran over ten seconds quicker than the previous week (and produced a bonus win
in the B 400), and it was good to see Lucy Turner not
only back in racing but looking determined and competitive. The rest of the team was the Evendens, Mum and Daughter, and they not only pulled in
a good haul of points (Ros winning the B Hammer and officialling it as
well!) but Stacey added a further dozen centimetres to her
Hammer best.
It seemed to be the
fashion on Saturday to set throwing records; and even thought the throws were
in the hands of some of the Club’s Elder Statesmen of Chucking another couple
went down. The Scribe had a bit of
fun pointing out to the other clubs that the Club Under-20 Discus record-holder
was taking part (and then mentioning that he set the record in 1975!); but by
the end of the afternoon Paul
Armstrong had a couple of
Over-50 marks – in Shot and Hammer – in his pocket. As he had a good day with the Discus and
Javelin as well he went home well pleased.
Comparative youngster Kevin
Jewison, after a morning’s
work, dashed over him and supported in three throws to effect, allowing Ivan Roberts, after his Hammer efforts, to turn into an
official.
The reverse
metamorphosis affected the Club’s youngest graded official, Karl Evenden; spotting a gap in the 400, he strode round it
for four points. The sprints were
in the contrasting hands of Nathan
Wells, who had a fruitful
afternoon with two very decent sprints and a solid Long Jump, and the
everlasting Tony Bowman – is he Britain’s oldest League competitor at
72? – who was pleased with his efforts.
Will Plastow made his second track appearance, and ran a
sound 1500, though he struggled for pace a bit over 800; clearly the longer
distances suit him better. The
redoubtable Scott Mitchell, himself nearing veterancy, restricted himself
in view of a creaky foot to 45 leg-overs and a demonstration of how to take
inexperienced steeplechasers apart.
The relays were all completed, but very much as a points-harvesting
exercise, especially as three-quarters of the two Women’s teams were identical
However, there was
high comedy and high drama in the longer men’s events. In the 1500 the two Pudsey and Bramley lads,
running together, were discussing when they’d put in their finishing kick to
see off the old man running behind them; “we’ll go at 300 to go,” one of them
said, at which Martin Farran pulled out with 400 to go and left them in his
slipstream. (Moral – never discuss tactics with crafty old ******s in
earshot!) In the 5000 Martin
was contenting himself with running to win the B and letting Pete Steel take on a pretty fair
4th May – UKA
Young Athletes’ League, Northern Premier Division,
ORDEAL BY WATER FOR
COMPETITORS AND OFFICIALS
The Blackburn
athletics track is in
The current team is on
paper not as strong as last year’s.
There is a particular weakness in the middle-distances in the Under-17 Women, where only Rachel May turned out (and ran quite
a decent first 3000). To
counterbalance this there are three strong contributors in points in Amy and Katy Marchant and Rosie Trudgen,
and all three were good value on their second competition of the weekend. Amy and Katy did their ‘traditional’
High Jump and Hurdles double act, with Amy going on to Long Jump and Katy to
throw the Spear, and they produced to wins, a dead-heat and three seconds,
though understandably all performances, apart from the Hurdles, were down on
expectations. Rosie was
considerably more experimental, running 200 and tackling the 300m Hurdles for
the first time she shared the latter with another debutant, Chloe Gordon, and both of them made a fair shift of the
job. Chloe also ran the 100, and Lauren Cahill covered sprints and jumps; Stacey Evenden threw just about everything, though again not
quite as well as the previous day, and Grace Simpson
ran a sound 300, though her throwing was a bit weather-affected.
Apart from the Vault (Mark Fuszard and Tobin Carey-Williams could have, but can’t be blamed for passing it up in that lot), there
were no gaps in the Under-17
Men’s team-sheet, though
there were some interesting performers in some events. In Tom Mosley’s enforced absence Joe Walker and Tom Webber were
charged with sprint duty, and took it on well; while one of the lads whom they
persuaded to start training this winter, Adam Pape,
emerged as an emergency hurdler and Triple-jumper and showed promise in two of
his three events. Another giving a
new event a go was Andr‚
Parker-Laing, who took on
the 400 Hurdles with gusto if not style.
After not vaulting Tobin High-jumped and Tripled for good points, while
Mark had a decent wet High Jump and a pretty good Long Jump, but was edged in
the latter by Itti Niaz, who set PBs in that and the Hurdles, and then
had a rush of blood to the head and allowed himself to be volunteered for the
Steeplechase. He finished last – Danny Davies won after running a PB 3000 – but it took
nerve to do it at all. Mike Wood and Rob Torch
doubled 800 and1500, and ran well – Rob
running a PB 800 – while Lee Allsopp
persevered to win the B 3000.
There were a coupe of
disappointed athletes in this group; Sam Lowry
described his 400 as “appalling” due to a chest cold and blocked nose; he
certainly looked a bit white about the gills afterwards. (His partner Matt Bleakley went quite well in his first race ever.) What happened in the throws The
Scribe never found out, but the weather probably had a lot to do with it; it’s
the only way to explain why Jonathan
Foster threw four metres
less with the 5k hammer than he did with the 6k the previous week. Neither he, Ben Sleigh or Karl Evenden got
much in the way of distance in the rain, though they scored good points.
The Under-15 girls also had a full team-sheet, though they only
produced two winners – a very determined Chloe Harley in
a desperately close finish in the 800 and Fran Coldwell,
who set a PB winning the Long Jump and another in the Hurdles (losing in an
incredibly tight finish) in the intervals between cowering under a brolly on
the High Jump fan (she was near her best in that too.) Bethany Potter,
who partnered her, finished well down but in the Hurdles made a huge
improvement in time, while Chloe’s partner Emily Robinson
heaved a large lump off her PB to go under 2.30 for the first time. Johanna Wilton
also set new figures, and Caitlin
Regan wasn’t far off hers,
over 1500, but in the sprints Kaisha
Holmes looked a little
rusty (the oil woo get through later in the year, no doubt); while a new
throwing combination of Katie
Radcliffe and Charlie Nicholson threw all the implements and scored nicely,
Katie improving her Discus.
There can’t be any
doubt about the run of the day!
If there’d been a Man of the Match Award (they’ve been dropped for
economic reasons – shame on UKA!) Elliot Todd’s
shattering 4.18.7 in the Under-15
Boys’ 1500 must have got
one of them. From being last year’s
second fiddle he’s burst forth to take thirty seconds off his best so
far this season, and on Sunday he lopped off thirteen at a go, leaving Gordon Benson in his wake and everybody else nowhere – and
Gordon was busily taking six seconds off his PB! There was plenty of other success
as well – Matt Wagner winning the Long Jump after being the only person
actually to do a successful Vault (and he only did one, and for once he ‘caught
a tiger’ in the Hurdles). Jack Mosley ran quite the best 200 he’s produced yet,
battling all the way in a tight ‘un, and Liam Braithwaite,
though caught in that limbo where last year’s good Under-13s often find
themselves on moving up, turned in a marked improvement. The 400 was The Long and The Short of It
– the lanky Stephen Coles winning (and then doing a good High Jump), and Luke Murray running a gutsy first effort at about four
foot nowt . (Heart has been known
to come in small packets!) Jamie Higgins and Alex Hart were a
bit lost for pace in the 800, though both battled and Jamie battled back. The injury to Jacob Gardiner not only weakened the team but forced a few
unusual events; Dylan Bradley (who had an excellent Hurdles) and Connor Morley turning themselves into hammer-throwers at
four days’ notice, and between them covering all the throws in the company of Jake Armstrong, who had two wins but in the rain couldn’t
match his Dad’s record-breaking of the day before. (He’ll get there, though!)
If heart comes in
small packets there’s a few around the Under-13 Girls,
and none more so than Gemma
Keir; her 800 against two
much bigger and older Liverpool girls looked like the Lilliput Champion taking
on the other lot, but Gemma wasn’t giving an inch until she had to, and sliced
six seconds off her previous time.
Behind her Melissa
Fletcher showed a similar
improvement before getting near her best Long Jump, while in the 1200 Grace Coburn may have been last in the A race but she was
eight seconds quicker than last year in the process. In the sprints much was expected of Alyssia Carr and Lana Morgan, and
they didn’t disappoint, winning three of four, with Alyssia partnering Millie Parkinson in the Splash-Down – sorry, High Jump – to
good effect. There were debuts for Amena Abdelaziz and Nicola Sawyer,
and they can build on their first efforts; they may not be washed away next
time.
The Under-13 Lads’ team was slightly disrupted after Jack Gape had to go home ill after the High Jump; it
left a gap in the Hurdles and pushed Kendle Hardisty
into doing an unexpected treble.
Stars of the show in this age-group were Dylan George, who dominated the sprints with two good wins,
and Bradley Metcalfe, an ‘old hand’ from last year at thirteen, who
made a big improvement in the Hurdles, ran a battling 800, and then picked up
the Shot for the first time in competition – and won! Sean Flanagan
repeated his 1500/Long Jump doubles of last year, Chris Giff filled gaps in sprints, 800 and High Jump, and
Ben Tootle made a first appearance over 1500.
It wasn’t one of the
Club’s better starts in this League, but The Scribe has been looking at some of
the other match’s result-sheets, and compared to many of the other clubs, whose
teams have more holes in them than a slab of Jarlsberg cheese, it’s nowhere
near as bleak an outlook as the wiseacres were talking about pre-season. The Club could do to do some recruiting
– some of the team members could do a Joe Walker and encourage their mates to
come and train, perhaps – bit if everybody can get fit and available the kids
could surprise themselves.
1-3rd
May - British Universities Championships,
ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHTS
The Scribe has had a
quick run through the results of the Championship, though some of them were
very late getting on the website and he’s not certain he’s got everybody who
competed (no doubt those he’s missed will tell him!) Highlight was undoubtedly Adam Grice’s win in the 10000m in a respectable 30.57.62,
though he reckoned in an e-mail that the race was very tactical, and in a quick
one he might have got somewhere near 29.30; having seen his run the previous
week The Scribe reckons he’s not kidding.
However, the important thing was winning, especially as his nearest
rival was Notts. A.C.’S Jonathan Thewlis; seems to be becoming a theme at the
moment. Pleasingly it wasn’t the
only medal, as Alice Simpson, who’s already having a good summer with the
Shot, took a Silver medal to add to her indoor Bronze with a throw of 12.44 –
which would have been a Club record if she’d done it on the Friday night, but
was actually done on Sunday. There
were two other Finalists – Matt
Hudson, 6th in
the 110m Hurdles with a sharp 15.03, and Rhys Smith, who
after setting a PB of 48.64 in the semi-final bettered it in finishing 5th
with 48.29. The only other
performance which sprang to the eye was Lucie Shipley’s
22.66 with the Javelin, some way down the filed but it’s good to see her competing.
ONE FOR THE ROAD – AND A
GOOD ONE
Club road running
seemed to be put on hold this weekend.
The only item noted – needless to say by Lunchtime O’Surf – was James Walsh
placing 10th in the Great Edinburgh Run in 31.18. There was probably a hill or two on the
course.
EARLY SUCCESS ON THREE WHEELS
Left out of last week’s Clubnews amid all the
excitement (for which The Scribe apologises) was Paul Moseley’s account of the Wheelchair Group’s first competitive
outing of the season. Paul reports
that “all three of